Franco-Prussian War: What did France do wrong?

Start with empire.

# 1. The failure of military reform

This is not Napoleon III's fault. After seeing the Austrian War in 1866, the French desperately felt that war with Prussia was imminent and military reforms were urgent. Marshal Adolf Niel prepared a military reform with the emperor's consent.

By 1875, the regular army will increase to 800,000 people

Establish a mobile defense force of 400,000 people to be responsible for garrison tasks. In this way, the regular army can only fight on the battlefield and will not bear the burden of The task of defending cities and fortresses

Various standard tactics. Stop using elan, but rely on infantry firepower, adopt feu de bataillon

Adopt modern weapons, such as car chassis, tripods, etc.

Organizing the Railways

Improving Training and Discipline

This all sounds good, right? But it was rejected by the National Assembly...

The Second French Empire since 1860 was a free empire. Therefore, the emperor's power was largely limited to the presidency, rather than being an absolute ruler. All policies and decrees proposed by the Emperor shall be submitted to the National Assembly for approval by vote. A majority vote will decide whether to accept a new proposal. Military reforms were rejected due to the anti-Bonaparte National Assembly. It is mainly controlled by Orleanists, orthodoxists, moderate communists and partisans, socialists, radical communists and partisans. The Napoleonic party was pitifully small. Emile Olivier's Third Party was the party most supportive of Napoleon III, because it was he who proposed the Free Empire, which Napoleon III agreed to. However, even that party did not enjoy popular approval.

Emile Ollivier

Thus, the left and the right united to reject the proposal. The famous politician Gambetta Thales even said,

"The Emperor says war is coming!" Where is the threat? I don't see it. "

The National Assembly saw military reforms as a militaristic policy to suppress the emperor's political opponents, and went a step further. They cut the country's military budget.

So, sadly, the French army was not organized at the beginning of the war and it took half a month to reduce their effective strength to half, causing great confusion among the masses and the army. Chaos. As a result, the 2,000-man regiment only had 1,300 men. Because unlike the Prussian government, which had control over all private railway companies during the war, the French government did not have such power. Therefore, the soldiers remained private. Having to face refugees, civilian travelers and other strange obstacles while searching for their warehouse is something that shouldn't happen in a time of war!

# 2 Political Unstableness

This one. The lesson also applies to the modern world, so I recommend that you read this section with special attention.

I mentioned before that the French National Assembly was largely anti-Napoleonic at the beginning of World War I. The French political channel learned the opposite lesson from the last war and formed the Holy League.

Although the French were completely unprepared and Napoleon III was concerned about the outcome of the war, the National Assembly voted in favor of the war. Adolf Telles was against it (rejecting military reform, but wanted war, eh?) However, this did not mean that the political issue was resolved, though, as each political faction had different political goals in the war. p>

Empress Eugenie says that the Paris Revolution is coming (before the Battle of the Couple) and the Emperor must win!

Six agents of the Comintern are sabotaging France's military supplies and Morale. The right-wingers are preparing a coup to establish the Republic of Korea. Queen Eugenie and the Minister of War Palikao, despite knowing nothing about the war and how it was conducted, just want to ensure that their political background is unreasonable. The military operation was doomed from the beginning

Queen

# 3. The poor field commanders

One is Canrobert. , another was MacMahon, and another was Bazaine. Initially, Marshal Neal - who led the reforms in 1868 but died in 1869 - planned three armies to fight against the German enemy. One was the army of Chalon, led by Cam Robert. , the other was the Alsace army under MacMahon, and the last was the Lorraine army under Bazin (Badsey S. The Franco Prussian War 1870-71, p. 35)

Napoleon III. Not satisfied with this plan, as he had no military authority within his own army, he abandoned the idea and adopted the mistaken idea of ??having the armies of the Rhine form a powerful army under his own command.